All3Media International
Rachel Job, senior VP of unscripted content at All3Media International, outlines how the global unscripted market is changing, where the growth is and her priorities for the London TV Screenings this month.
Which unscripted genres are currently hot and which are not so hot?
Premium documentaries from top-tier producers that shine a spotlight on big global stars continue to attract buyers and their audiences, so we’re excited to showcase Wonderhood Studios’ Michael Jackson: The Trial and Lion TV’s Taylor Swift: A Love Story at our upfronts at the London TV Screenings.
These headline titles join our expansive slate of documentaries centred on high-profile figures, including Becoming Madonna, Diddy: In Plain Sight, Spacey Unmasked and Who is Ghislaine Maxwell?, all of which have consistently delivered strong global sales throughout the international market.
Across genres, buyers are looking for exclusive access and insider testimony. Michael Jackson: The Trial features unseen footage and unheard audio tapes leading to dramatic new revelations around the King of Pop’s 2005 sexual abuse trial, generating strong interest from global buyers. Our wider true crime slate from leading producers like Lightbox, Candour and DSP Films delivers revelatory stories that are fresh, bold and distinct, reaching beyond the genre’s traditional narrative tropes.
Outside of documentaries, well-made factual programming that delivers exclusive access and insight into other worlds is also attractive to buyers. Crackit’s Inside the World’s Most Luxurious opens doors to lavish yachts, motorhomes, hotels and resorts, cruise ships, airlines and holiday escapes, while Monty Don’s Rhineland Gardens sees the charismatic celebrity gardener visit fantastic Instagrammable travel destinations.
Returnable brands, stories and talent are proving to have longevity in the global market. Long-running factual programming fronted by recognisable faces is attractive to a broad scope of audiences – in particular younger viewers, who have so much choice available to them and so tend to lean deeper into content that is engaging, as well as recognisable and familiar.
From our catalogue, established, much-loved talent like Monty Don and newer voices like Olivia Attwood – whose frank, funny and relatable approach continues to connect as she tackles taboo topics like OnlyFans and plastic surgery – are consistently cutting through, as is global reality phenomenon The Traitors. Such brands guarantee exceptional entertainment value with a high volume, a promise of returnability and comfort viewing through familiarity.
Demand for genuinely authentic reality competition shows with family-friendly appeal is undeniable. With multiple versions of The Traitors and numerous series of Race Across the World in our catalogue, we can superserve audience demand. Both shows are vehicles for ordinary people to be extraordinary in a world where we have seen reality TV shift, ironically, away from the ‘real’ – and audiences across the globe are connecting with this.
What new titles are you focusing on for the London TV Screenings?
Joining Michael Jackson: The Trial and Taylor Swift: A Love Story at our upfronts, we’re excited to unveil a wider unscripted slate. Lion TV’s sweeping historical epic Lost Kingdom of Arabia reveals the extraordinary story of Ghassan, a Christian Arab kingdom that once stood at the crossroads of empire, between Rome in the West and a rising Persian superpower in the East. Made with Lion’s trademark epic storytelling, filmed across striking locations and told through interviews and testimony from international experts, the documentary delivers gripping historical investigation that restores this forgotten kingdom to its rightful place in history.
Additionally, timely true crime series 2.6 Seconds: Death in the Outback, from the award-winning team at Blackfella Films, promises an intimate, forensic and unflinching story. Across four episodes, the series follows a single, fatal encounter that sent shockwaves across Australia. In a remote desert community, 19-year-old Warlpiri Luritja teenager Kumanjayi Walker is shot and killed by 27-year-old police officer Zachary Rolfe. The series goes far beyond the courtroom to confront the deep fractures at the heart of the nation both men called home.
From genre-leading natural history producer Silverback Films – the team behind standout global programming such as Parenthood and Ocean with David Attenborough – we have the latest title fronted by rising star Hamza Yassin. Bringing his trademark knowledge, warmth and enthusiasm to the screen once again, Hamza continues to inspire viewers to connect more deeply to the natural world.
What are the biggest shifts you’re seeing in international demand for factual – and how is this reshaping your slate priorities?
Demand around the kind of true crime content buyers are looking for has shifted. With an oversaturated market, buyers are increasingly discerning and want to see new material and strong access. They are increasingly loyal to content from producers they know they can trust to deliver strong stories with integrity. Stranger-than-fiction true stories that move beyond the genre’s traditional narrative tropes, delivered over a boxset of two to four hours, are cutting through.
Our recent true crime launches deliver exactly that, including Candour’s The Sycamore Gap Mystery, where the ‘victim’ is a tree in a crime that shocks a nation; DSP Films’ Lover, Liar, Predator, which exposes the dark realities of manipulation and control as a group of women unite to bring one man to justice; and Hidden Light’s The Million Pound Shaman Scam, which uncovers the extraordinary tale of a shamanic con-queen operating in the leafy suburbs of Hampstead. Lightbox’s Murder at the Post Office adds another compelling layer, examining how a murder investigation became entwined with the same flawed Post Office IT system at the centre of Britain’s biggest miscarriage of justice.
Which territories are driving the strongest growth for factual exports, and where are you seeing emerging opportunities?
There’s good interest in factual exports around the world. However, the US market is of particular interest. While the US pay TV market has been challenging, we have seen a big uptick in appetite for factual content on AVoD and SVoD as these platforms are turning to content fronted by iconic TV personalities including Monty Don, Alan Titchmarsh and Gordon Ramsay.
How are the global news cycle and economic pressures influencing buyers’ content strategies in 2026?
The landscape is evolving faster than ever for buyers, which gives them the ability to be opportunistic and respond to current events. Buyers have expressed strong interest in the documentary Inside NATO: The Battle to Stop Putin, which follows the current NATO operations in Europe and its war preparations across the continent. Titles like The Palace & The Presidents add some historical background to news events such as Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK last year. Our 2022 premium factual series Who is Ghislaine Maxwell? is seeing a lot of new interest given the ongoing news about Jeffrey Epstein.
How is the importance of finished-tape sales changing for unscripted formats?
Reality juggernauts like The Traitors are driving high demand from buyers in terms of tape sales as well as format licences. Buyers are looking to acquire different versions of the show to superserve audiences via their on-demand platforms, in a way that never happened in the past when linear TV was the only place to premiere content.
Canada’s Crave, for example, hosts 12 versions of The Traitors, while the BBC, NBC, RTL and Network 10 are among clients acquiring multiple finished-tape versions. The Traitors’ ability to attract top-tier talent such as Claudia Winkleman in the UK, Alan Cumming in the US and Bollywood star Karan Johar in India underscores the brand’s worldwide pull.
Beyond this, we’re also seeing formats like The Circle and Rise & Fall come to life again through new adaptations, the latter achieving record-breaking success in India for Amazon MX.
How does All3Media International balance its work with group companies versus third-party suppliers?
With all producer clients and their content, we work in exactly the same way. Our sales team are not incentivised to sell content from one producer over another. We acquire content from third parties that complements what we already have in our catalogue. Wherever the content comes from, we are proud to represent every title that joins our catalogue.
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All3Media International exec VPs Sally Habbershaw, Sabrina Duguet and Stephen Driscoll discuss highlights from the distributor’s catalogue, industry reactions to its Mipcom slate and what lies ahead in 2025.
“Our footprint has really evolved in the premium documentary space,” says Sally Habbershaw, executive VP of the Americas at All3Media International, who points to two blue-chip natural history titles from Silverback Films – David Attenborough: Ocean, produced in partnership with National Geographic, and Parenthood. Both are narrated by Sir David Attenborough.
“He remains incredibly charismatic, entertaining and engaging,” Habbershaw says of the celebrated naturalist.
She also highlights Spacey: Unmasked, produced by Roast Beef Productions, which looks at the sexual misconduct allegations against Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey. “When we started conversations, there wasn’t a result from the Kevin Spacey trial so it was important for us to find partners who were willing to take a risk,” she says. “Discovery put faith in this documentary, acquiring it for the US, Europe and Latin America. Other partners followed and we secured pre-sales across four continents.”
Meanwhile, Nutopia’s upcoming docudrama Jesus: Crown of Thorns has immense appeal in Latin America, says Habbershaw: “It features an array of experts, who provide a rigorous historical underpinning to the series. We’re seeing lots of interest by free-to-air broadcasters and streamers.”
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Against a backdrop of an evolving industry and with Mipcom on the horizon, C21 Screenings catches up with three execs from All3Media International to hear how the market is changing and what they have on offer for their trip to Cannes.
Trying to keep abreast of all the seismic and historic changes taking place across the TV industry, it can be easy to forget that the day-to-day revolves around buying and selling programming. And it’s the execs at that coalface who invariably have the best perspective on what’s really happening in the market.
The ongoing trend for mergers and takeovers, for example, “plays a constant role in the evolution of our industry, and the impact is felt in a variety of ways,” reflects Stephen Driscoll, exec VP of EMEA at All3Media International.
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Peta Sykes, All3Media International’s sales manager for Scandinavia, reveals how the company’s new autumn slate reflects an evolving market, with the pandemic and the streaming boom driving big changes in the territories she covers.
All3Media International’s autumn slate encompasses detectives, football, thrillers, period drama, more detectives, word games and a real-life kidnapping – a broad selection of titles that reflects the programming priorities at the UK-based distributor, as well as some constants in an ever-changing market.
“We have always been a strong home for detective programming,” says Peta Sykes, the company’s sales manager for Scandinavia. “We’ve got detective series with female leads, male leads, ensembles and series based on novels – both period and contemporary.
“We are really pleased about the breadth of our slate in this area – from New Pictures’ new version of PD James’ period detective Dalgleish to Glassriver’s stylish Icelandic thriller Black Sands – as well as Neil Dudgeon’s 50th episode as Inspector Barnaby in Midsomer Murders (he joined in series 14), from Bentley Productions, and Annika starring Nicola Walker. There is always a demand for strong detective dramas, and also for gripping psychological thrillers with strong casts that can be easily scheduled.”
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All3Media International’s Maartje Horchner explores how the market for scripted formats has evolved and talks us through the IP on the company’s playlist for C21’s Digital Screenings this week.
As with all parts of the international TV business, the scripted formats market has been impacted by lockdowns and the explosion of streaming over the past year as broadcasters and global platforms alike put the emphasis on local content.
So says Maartje Horchner, the London-based executive VP of content at distributor All3Media International, who is this week showcasing a dozen scripted formats to international buyers via C21’s Digital Screenings and is also sharing some of her insights as to how this particular corner of the global industry is changing.
“The international market for scripted formats had been growing, even before lockdown,” she says. “Interest was increasing year-on-year and slowly started to convert to actual local versions being produced and aired, rather than just discussed with creatives.”
This growth appears to be driven, in part, by all the global SVoD platforms that have launched over the past year. “The opportunity has a lot to do with the arrival of global streamers opening up the world to English-language content – and, indeed, global content,” Horchner notes.
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In this Content London On Demand campaign, All3Media International is offering a playlist blending true crime, comedy, mystery and thrills, and the company says it is set up to deliver the best in writing, acting and producing talent.
As the distribution arm of an independent production group boasting 30 companies that are responsible for some of the biggest scripted brands in the world, All3Media International is in a strong position to make good on its promise of delivering premium storytelling and high-quality production values. The company also works with over 50 third-party indies to ensure the supply of programming for its global client base.
That it has launched more than 100 hours of new content to the market this year is all the more remarkable considering the current state of international television industry, which is still finding its feet amidst a raft of new health and safety measures and financial considerations needed to placate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“A number of our scripted projects were midway through filming when the pandemic hit and were forced to shutdown temporarily,” says David Swetman, the distributor’s senior VP of scripted content. “Fortunately, we are now back in production on all these shows and a number of other scripted projects that will deliver in early 2021. One of the key strengths of All3Media International’s scripted catalogue is that we work with producers around the world, so whilst we may have stopped filming in the UK, we still had productions underway in Australia, New Zealand and Germany.”
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Maartje Horchner, exec VP of content at All3Media International, talks us through her C21 Digital Screenings playlist and discusses how events of this year have changed things.
Distributors have had to think on their feet this year, as programme supply lines dry up due to the production freeze and traditional markets go online, and the sales strategy shifts to readymade content and pitching via Zoom. Like other distributors, All3Media International has been impacted and has adapted its strategy accordingly.
“We are fortunate that the majority of our dramas had completed photography and had started post-production before lockdown,” says Maartje Horchner, exec VP of content at the company.
“The flexibility of our producers and the initiatives they have undertaken have been remarkable, so shows have been delivered with the highest production values and there’s a string of shows in development that could be produced within the strictest of social distancing guidelines – all without the viewer being aware of any production requirements.”
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The UK-based distributor has a Rolodex of more than 1,000 broadcasters and platforms dipping into its content library. This article explores All3Media International’s C21 Digital Screenings playlist.
Broadcasters around the world have taken on a far more important role in the lives of their audience in recent weeks, not only keeping them informed but also offering entertaining moments of respite and distraction.
“These are really tough times for colleagues and friends across the global production industry. As an international distributor with a substantial library we are lucky to be having conversations about filling gaps in schedule while trying to provide financial support to productions that have been delayed,” says Louise Pedersen, CEO of All3Media International.
Pedersen points to the organisation’s relationship with Knox Media Hub, which has seen the two develop a cloud-based content delivery system, as being key to its ability to deliver master material quickly to clients.
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